24 Hours: A Kirk McGarvey Novella

by David Hagberg

  “You were right after all,” she told McGarvey, and she introduced the security guard. “Phil Lawson, he’s in overall charge of surveillance security on campus.”

  “Glad we could help,” Lawson said. He was a heavy-set man with the polite but firm attitude of a cop.

  They took the elevator down to the basement, where the security office shared the level with a number of research projects. Classes were over for the day, and the building was fairly quiet—only a few students were out and about, some of them postdocs.

  “We don’t maintain a 24-7 physical watch,” Lawson said. “But we spot-check inputs from the various cameras around campus, and a computer program distinguishes things like fires or break-ins. For the rest, we don’t have the budget.”

  The security office was a suite of three rooms, one of them manned by two officers ready to respond to emergencies that would be reported to them from on-campus patrols. Another was an office, and the third was filled with racks that contained three dozen digital recorders.

  Coffey was seated at a desk in front of the racks watching a monitor on which he’d downloaded a recording from one of the cameras in a chem lab upstairs.

  “What do you have?” McGarvey asked.

  A woman in a white lab coat came into what looked like a storage room filled with shelves of chemicals, some of which were in glass-fronted cabinets, and lab equipment, including several electronic devices and two old-fashioned optical microscopes.

  The woman, her back to the camera, opened one of the cabinets, took out a brown bottle, and put it in her coat pocket. She turned to go, this time facing directly at the surveillance camera.

  Coffey stopped the recording. “We came up with a match from student records. Her name is Asil Assad, a transfer from UC–Berkeley in the fall semester. Third-year molecular chemistry student.”

  “Has somebody looked for her on campus?”

  “Her roommate said she flew back to California two days ago. A family emergency. That was the morning after she lifted the chloroform.”

  “I just got back from interviewing her,” Kelley said. “Name is Melisa Minorshe’s also a third-year chem student. They weren’t close, but she said Asil seemed normal. Claimed she was born in Omaha, but her parents moved to LA when she was a kid.”

  “Did you search her things?"

  Kelley exchanged a glance with her partner. “She was coming back, or at least she wanted to make it look that way. Most of her clothes were still in her locker and chest of drawers. But she forgot her phone.” Kelley took it from her pocket and gave it to McGarvey.

  “Did you open it?”

  “No. I figured that it could be password protected, and I didn’t want to screw it up.”

  “How do you know it’s hers?”

  “It was in a drawer in her desk, stuffed behind some notebooks. Looked like study materials.”

  “We ran a check on her roommate, but so far, she comes up clean,” Coffey said.

  “What do you want us to do about her?” Lawson asked.

  “Nothing for now,” McGarvey told him.

  “What about us?” Kelley asked.

  “Find out what she knows about the girl’s off-campus friends. Maybe you can find out where they hung out.”

  “If they ever existed,” Kelley said. “Fox has supposedly been a metalhead starting about six months ago. We think the couple of times she skipped away from us she might have gone to one of clubs playing that sort of stuff. When she showed up, she smelled of pot and booze. The group who took her somehow knew about it.”

  “You didn’t tell her father.”

  “We mentioned some of it, but all he told us was to keep her safe.”

  “What about her chip?”

  “She didn’t get the chip until two months ago,” Coffey said. “It’s something new.”

  “Her kidnappers knew about it.”

  “Someone on the inside,” Kelley said. “Which keeps us at the top of the list.”

  “We have a little less than six hours to find her, so I suggest you hustle,” McGarvey said.

  * * *

  McGarvey called Otto from his car and told him about the phone.

  “Turn it on.”

  McGarvey did, and within a second or two after the screen lit up, Otto was back.

  “Got it, and this is no girl chem student’s iPhone. It’s using the same Chinese encryption algorithm as the one they used to call the White House. I’m downloading its contents now.”

  “Will you be able to get anything from it?”

  “Oh, yeah, tons of stuff, because it looks like they made a mistake. Looks like the encryption program works only for phone calls and text messages. But everything else, all the apps, the photos and videos, and maybe even some of the e-mails—I’ll know about that in a minute or so—are as wide open as a whore’s thighs.”

  “We have a short video of her on the campus surveillance system. She’s the one who lifted the chloroform from the chem lab. She was a transfer from UC–Berkeley, and her roommate said that she was called back to California for a family emergency. Name she gave was Asil Assad. See what you can come up.”

  “Going to be a busy night.”

  “Yeah, for all of us,” McGarvey said.

  * * *

  Dr. Hamsi was just leaving his office when McGarvey showed up at the Arab Center. He didn’t seem surprised to see Mac again. They went back inside, where the professor set his briefcase on his desk.

  “You have made some progress, and you have come to me for more help.”

  “Do you know a girl named Asil Assad?”

  A sad expression came over Hamsi’s face. “Indeed I do, Mr. Director. A troubled girl.

  “In what way?”

  “If you mean to ask was she radicalized, my answer is no. As I told you earlier, I personally know of no student or faculty member here on campus who is radicalized. But she was questioning her beliefs, which Father O’Shea has told me is a problem not confined to Islam, but to Christianity and Judaism as well. The modern times are not always in accord with ancient traditions.”

  “I think that you are lying to me,” McGarvey said.

  “Your deadline is approaching, and you are desperate, for which I cannot blame you. But I don’t have the answers you seek. I am sorry.”

  “I never mentioned a deadline.”

  “In hostage situations, there is always a deadline.”

  “Do you know where she went?”

  “California. She said there was a family emergency.”

  “When did she tell you that?”

  “Yesterday afternoon.”

  “You know that she was lying.”

  “Yes.”

  “Just as you know that she is involved in the kidnapping.”

  “Yes,” the professor said. “But if she is among them, if she is involved, hers will be the voice of moderation, the voice of reason.”

  * * *

  Otto called as McGarvey was getting into his car.

  “The Fort Blair cameras picked up a panel van leaving the house. We have a tag number.”

  “Put up four drones right now. One to circle Georgetown, one in a three-mile radius of the White House, and the other two in expanding circles from the Beltline.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m at the university, and I’m going to work my way outward. Maybe they’ll make a mistake. How about the girl’s phone?”

  “Nothing yet. Kid stuff. Music videos, mostly.”

  “All-American girl.”

  “Yeah.”

  Hour 19

  It was dark outside or nearly so. Dot had eaten the hamburger and drank the Coke, but she was hungry for real food, the kind Danny Bigelow, the White House chef, made for them. He was from New Orleans, but he had toned down his use of spices without ruining any of the meals. When he made a cheeseburger and fries for her, they were the real McCoy.

  She missed the comfort and security, and looking at her haggard reflection i
n the dirty mirror, she wondered what the hell she’d been thinking, taping up her chip and going to the bars. She was underage, but no bouncer was going to deny the president’s kid.

  A sharp noise came from somewhere down the hall. Someone shouted something.

  Dot crossed the room and put her ear to the corridor door. Someone, possibly in another room or maybe even downstairs, was saying something she couldn’t make out. But she thought it was the man who had hit her and threatened to kill her. Tarek had called him Fathi, and almost certainly he was the one in charge here.

  She pulled back. The noise she’d heard was a pistol shot. It had sounded like a firecracker, but every time people reported hearing gunshots, they described them as sounding like firecrackers.

  The bastard had shot one of his own people, for whatever reason. And she would be next.

  She didn’t know what to do, except that she wanted more than anything she’d ever wanted in her entire life to go to her father right now. But it wasn’t possible.

  At the window, she pulled the plastic curtain aside. The sky was dark, and there was a lot of traffic on the highway, all the cars and trucks running with their lights on. It was rush hour; people were going home from work.

  But she still had no idea where she was. Even if the phone worked and she could call 911, she wouldn’t know what to tell the operator, except that she was the president’s kid and she was sure some guy named Fathi was going to shoot her at any minute.

  Someone came to the door, and Dot let go of the curtain as if it had scalded her hand, and she turned around. She tried to think of something to do. Anything. A weapon to defend herself with.

  Tarek came in and saw her standing in the semidarkness. He checked the corridor and then closed the door.

  Dot took a half step forward, her legs nearly buckling.

  Tarek put a finger to his lips as he came to her and helped her sit down on the edge of the bed. “You must be very quiet now; things have gotten bad.”

  “I heard a gunshot.”

  “Yes, Fathi killed our White House contact. The man wanted to get out, but we couldn’t let that happen. He knew too much.”

  “You guys killed Ralph?”

  “You did see him, then?”

  “Yes, in the corridor. He was one of my dad’s advisers on the Middle East, I think. A professor from Harvard, I think.” She couldn’t grasp the enormity of it. “I think,” she mumbled. “Not a traitor.”

  “Fathi’s been ordered to take your father’s deal for the red mercury, but Asil keeps telling him that it’s a trick. The stuff is probably worthless, and even if it can cause nuclear explosions, we don’t have the scientists who know how to make it work.”

  “What about me?”

  “He’s going to get us all killed.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Christ, now? Is he going to shoot me now?”

  “Not until midnight, and he’s not going to shoot you.”

  Tarek was breathing through his mouth, and even through her own fear, Dot could see that he was just as frightened as she was. He was just a kid, not much older than she was.

  “What, then?”

  “He means to make you a martyr—probably all of us martyrs—to the cause. Except for him, of course. Or maybe even him. I don’t know; none of us do.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dot said. He was holding her arm, and she put her hand on his. “Tell me what to do.”

  Tarek was startled by her touch. “The e-mail account is compromised. Fathi is going somewhere to make a phone call to get instructions. Somewhere for the red mercury to be delivered. Anywhere but here in Arlington.”

  Even in her present state, Dot realized that Tarek had either made a mistake or he was trying to give her information. They were in Arlington on the other side of the river. Maybe the highway out the window was Interstate 66. She’d come down here on one of her father’s campaign swings. Some rally at the Manassas National Battlefield Park. The location had some significance for the election, she thought.

  “Kidnapping a president’s daughter isn’t such an easy thing to pull off,” she said, but she didn’t know why.

  “We had orders, but it’s different from what I’d thought it would be. Fathi is from Saudi Arabia, but Asil and I are from here in the States. She was born here. I came with my parents from Iraq when I was just a child.”

  “Fathi is not a Saudi name, is it?”

  “It’s not his real name.”

  Tarek went to the window and stayed there for nearly a full minute. “There,” he said, letting the curtain fall back.

  Asil came to the door. She was dressed for the outside and had a jacket for Dot. “Riham and your brother are waiting downstairs in the lobby.”

  “For us?” Tarek asked.

  “No, for Fathi,” she said. “We have to go out the back way.” She handed the jacket to Dot. “Can you walk?”

  Dot got to her feet. She felt as if she would throw up at any moment, and her head was spinning. “Yes,” she said, and she put on the jacket and zippered it.

  “You won’t get far without your boots,” Asil said, not unkindly.

  “I wasn’t thinking,” Dot said. She sat down on the bed again, and Tarek brought her boots to her.

  “We might have to hide outside somewhere, so you’ll need something on your feet,” Tarek told her.

  When she had her boots on and zippered, Tarek helped her up again.

  Asil pulled a pistol from her jacket pocket and opened the door a crack. She turned back. “Absolutely no noise now,” she whispered. “They won’t hesitate to shoot us to save the girl.”

  “I won’t shoot my brother,” Tarek said.

  They slipped out into the corridor, which was littered with trash and piles of dirty bath towels in front of some of the doors. The place had not operated as a motel for a very long time.

  Asil held up at the open door to the stairs and listened for a long time. But now there was nothing to hear. Dot didn’t think she could even hear the traffic noise from the highway out front.

  They started down, Asil in the lead, Tarek helping Dot, whose stomach was turning over. Her heart was thumping, and her knees were weak. And she was freezing cold.

  The ground-floor door was open too, and Asil peered around the corner before she waved them on.

  Tarek’s brother and a tall, thickly built woman came around the corner, each of them armed with a pistol.

  Tarek started to say something when the woman aimed at Dot and fired one shot.

  Hour 20

  McGarvey parked down the block from the house on S Street purely on a hunch that Dot’s kidnappers might be forced to come back here at some point—and also because it was physically impossible for him to be everywhere at once.

  He phoned Bernstein, who said Otto had passed on the tag number to him as well.

  “I’ve advised Metro PD to search DC but with extreme caution. They promised not to approach the van or have an interaction with any person in or near the vehicle, but to call me personally. I’m betting they aren’t far from Georgetown. Where are you?”

  “At the S Street house,” McGarvey said. “But if those guys spot a squad car poking around, they won’t hesitate to pull the pin.”

  “My call. We’re not going to sit around doing nothing.”

  “What about the president? Has he gotten anything back from his e-mail?”

  “Not yet, but something else has come up. One of his advisers has gone missing. Name’s Ralph Petit. I don’t know him personally, but he came over from Harvard to help out.”

  “With what?”

  “He’s an expert on Middle East affairs,” Bernstein said. “He was in and out all through the night, but then he disappeared. I sent people to his apartment an hour ago, and they got back to me five minutes ago. You’ll never guess what they found on his laptop. ISIS websites. Propaganda. Recruitment videos.”

  “Research. About what you�
�d expect on his computer.”

  “Yeah, but a lot of the stuff is encrypted with a program we’re not familiar with.”

  “Call Otto Rencke right now, and tell your people not to touch anything else,” McGarvey said. He gave Bernstein Otto’s private number at Langley.

  “My people are capable of handling it.”

  “We’ve already run into what might be the same program on a phone we found at the university. Call Rencke.”

  “You’ve brought us this far, Mr. Director, for which I thank you. But we’ll take it from here. Petit’s not going to be so hard to find. And once we crack the algorithm, we’ll have the bastards.”

  “Listen to me, goddamnit.”

  “President’s orders,” Bernstein said. “It’s our problem; we’re on it.” He hung up.

  McGarvey phoned Otto and told him about the encryption algorithm on Petit’s laptop and Bernstein’s reaction.

  “You can’t blame him. His people lost the president’s daughter, and he wants his service to be the one to find her.”

  “I don’t have Petit’s e-mail account.”

  “I’m seeing three; one of them is the White House,” Otto said. “Okay, got it. Looks like the same program from the girl’s phone you found.”

  “Have you broken it yet?”

  “Close, but they made another mistake a half hour ago. This one big. The same encryption key was used in a call through a cell tower just off I-495 outside of Annandale. Short and sweet, to somewhere in the 212 area code.”

  “New York City.”

  “I haven’t locked onto the number yet, but I have one of the drones heading down to Annandale. With any luck, the caller is driving the Ford van.”

  “He wants instructions for what to do about the red mercury offer.”

  “That’s what I think, but he’s on the run, which means he didn’t want to make the call from wherever they’re holding Dorothy.”

  “Either that or she’s in the van, so don’t give this to Bernstein just yet. They warned the president that his daughter would die in what they called a spectacular public display.”

  “A beheading.”

  “Either that or an explosive vest,” McGarvey said. “They could set her loose in front of the White House, back off out of sight, and when a crowd showed up, they could send the signal.”